The default log path, /var/log/icecast, is not created automatically, so you will need to either create that folder and chown to the user in the changeowner lines, change the log path, or disable logging. Be aware that by turning changeowner on, all paths are relative to the home directory of that user. You will have to edit all paths manually. A good choice might be to create a new user "icecast" and set its home directory to /usr/share/icecast. Create there a directory "log" and don't forget to give the ownership to icecast.

+

The default log path, /var/log/icecast, is not created automatically, so you will need to either create that folder and chown to the user in the changeowner lines, change the log path, or disable logging. Be aware that by turning changeowner on, all paths are relative to the home directory of that user. You will have to edit all paths manually. A good choice might be to create a new user "icecast" and set its home directory to /usr/share/icecast. Create there a directory "log" and do not forget to give the ownership to icecast.

Icecast

Icecast is a program for streaming audio such as music across a network.
Different types of clients connect to the icecast server, either to provide a "mount point", control the server, or listen to the audio being cast.

Icecast has support for streaming many audio streams simultaneously - each stream has a "mount point" which a client can access, usually through a network uri, such as:

http://server:8000/mpd.ogg.m3u

This refers to a mount point called "mpd".

Setting up Icecast

Install Icecast via Pacman

# pacman -S icecast

Edit the configuration file.

Open up /etc/icecast.xml in your text editor.
The main section you want to pay attention to is <authentication>. Inside the <authentication> block are all the passwords that icecast use. I STRONGLY RECOMMEND you change them.
Icecast defaults to listening on port 8000, and you may also change that if you wish.

Since icecast 2.3.2-4 the daemon is started as nobody user. If you edit icecast configuration to start the daemon with a different user, then you need to edit the getPID function into the init script:
getPID() {
pgrep -u <USER_NAME> icecast 2>/dev/null
}

The default log path, /var/log/icecast, is not created automatically, so you will need to either create that folder and chown to the user in the changeowner lines, change the log path, or disable logging. Be aware that by turning changeowner on, all paths are relative to the home directory of that user. You will have to edit all paths manually. A good choice might be to create a new user "icecast" and set its home directory to /usr/share/icecast. Create there a directory "log" and do not forget to give the ownership to icecast.

Icecast paths

Global

If you plan on running icecast globally (one per machine) change the paths section to the following:

Local user

Note that if you're running icecast under a local user (i.e. one that doesn't use /etc/icecast.xml) then you'll need to copy the icecast web xml files from /usr/share otherwise you'll get errors about xslt and the web interface won't work.

$ cp -R /usr/share/icecast/web ~/icecast/

Running icecast

Start icecast

You can start icecast as a single user by executing:

# icecast -b -c /etc/icecast.xml

If you want icecast to remain in the foreground of your terminal, remove the -b flag.

To run icecast as a system daemon:

# /etc/rc.d/icecast start

Test it.

Make sure Icecast is running by opening up http://localhost:8000/ in your web browser. You should be greeted by an Icecast2 Status page. This indicates everything is running properly.

Streaming with MPD

MPD is a program for playing music via a daemon process instead of using a client. It also incorporates a music database for quick access, playlists, and a variety of frontend options.

Step 4: Running MPD with Icecast

Step 5: Test / use the stream

Now that you have installed the necessary software you probably want to test/use the stream. Realize that you'll need your client to do two things:

Connect to the mpd server so you can control it

Connect to the stream to actually hear the music. Connecting to the mpd server will alter output to the Icecast server but you won't hear it.

Sonata (a graphical mpd client) and mplayer (a command line client) are just two of the available clients. Note that if you use mplayer, you'll need another way to control the remote mpd server (for example ssh)

mpd

You can play an icecast stream from another mpd instance, on another computer, for example.

Use mpc to add the url to mpd's playlist

$ mpc add http://ip.of.server:8000/mpd.ogg.m3u

You can then play the stream as if it was a song belonging to your local mpd instance.

Sonata

Install Sonata:

# pacman -S sonata

Start it up and you should be greeted by Sonata's preferences.

Set 'Name' to the name of your server.

Set 'Host' to the IP address of your server.

Set 'Port' to '6600'.

Click the '+' and repeat the previous steps but instead about your local computer (ie. it's name and IP).

Right-click->'Connections' and select your server. Then click on the 'Library' tab, if all is well, you should see your entire music selection that's on your server. Find a folder, right-click and click 'Add'. Clicking on the 'Current' tab will show you your current playlist, which should have the contents of whatever folder you just chose from the library. Double-click on a song. You should see the text get bold and the progress bar show up, just like it's playing, but you won't hear anything. Fear not.

Right-click->'Connections' and select your local computer. Then click the 'Streams' tab. Right-click and click 'New'. Make 'Stream Name' the name from your servers /etc/mpd.conf file's audio_output { } section and make the URL IP.of.server:8000/mpd.ogg.m3u. Double-click on this stream.

Click on the 'Current' tab and you'll see the URL of the stream as your only item. Double-click on it and after a delay you should hear whatever song you had chosen on the server.

MPlayer

Install mplayer

# pacman -S mplayer

Start it, telling it to play the playlist that icecast places in the icecast root directory (the playlist redirects mplayer to mpd.ogg)

$ mplayer -playlist http://ip.of.server:8000/mpd.ogg.m3u

To control the remote mpd server, if you have an ssh server on the same machine, you can login and use [nc]mpc[pp] to control it.

Or, if your mpd server is listening on an accessible interface/port (netstat -tnlp on the mpd machine will show mpd listening on 0.0.0.0, for example) then you can set the MPD_HOST variable which directs a local client like mpc to the remote server.